Interpals =)

Have you ever heard  of the website Interpals? No? Well, then you missed out on something!

Interpals is a language exchange website where you can sign up and look for people who speak the language you want to learn. When I was 15 years old, I wanted to improve my English skills, and I knew that I would have to speak with natives in order to do so. I've known my oldest Interpals friend for more than 4 years now. He's an American from New Jersey, and he's the one who helped me improve my English in high school and who still proofreads my essays sometimes. The funny thing is that I always thought that I'd be the only one who's so nerdy that he signs up for something like language exchange. And for a long time I was the only one among my friends who was sooo crazy about languages. I guess you know that you found the right field of studies when the ones who study with you are just as crazy as you are :D A lot of my friends here in Graz are also on this site (and they also always believed to be the only crazy ones haha). So now it's like a 2nd facebook for us- we all use this site and added each other as friends :P.
Cool, right?


Yesterday I skyped with a pretty cool Russian guy who said he would help me improve my Russian. We had a very nice conversation. If I didn't know a word, he explained it; if I made a mistake, he told me. After some time, as I got really really tired, we started switching between English and Russian. We talked about politics and life in Russia, and since this is not the easiest topic, we decided to use both languages. He's not really good in English, so if he didn't know a word in English, he said it in Russian, and I told him the English equivalent.
It was really interesting to hear his perspective on various topics like, for example, the issues with the Ukraine. Once again I found out that our Media coverage isn't perfect either. For example, I'd never heard/read that the Krim used to be part of Russia until Jelzin decided to give it to the Ukraine as a present in 1991. The Russians suddenly became Ukraines- but most of them didn't want that. The Ukrainian government forbade them to vote whether they wanted to be Ukrainian or not.

Facts about Russia part 2...

Ok , I admit it...I just don't want to study anymore (probably the reason I'm so motivated to write blog posts right now :P)
Thaaat's why I decided to have a good laugh and write a blog post about some funny facts concerning gooood old Russia (I mean.. that's basically like studying, right? )

#1 Each Russian consumes 18 liters of Alcohol a year. That's twice as much as experts consider healthy.
#2  9 million more women than men live in Russia.
#3 At the nearest point Russia and America are less than 4km apart (that's from where I live to the nearest train station- takes about 15 minutes by car to get there)
#4 Russia is bigger than Pluto.
#5 A russian woman in the 1700s gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets in just 40 years with the same man
#6 In 1908, the Imperial Russian Olympic Team arrived to London 12 days too late for the games because they were not using the Gregorian calendar yet. (haha, I really had to laugh about that one :'D; imagine what the team must have felt like once they figured out they wouldn't even get the chance to compete)
#7 Bears in Russia are addicted to jet fuel, and sniff it to get high and pass out.
#8 In 2010, a heat wave in Russia led to over 1,000 deaths, the majority of which died from drowning while swimming drunk!

And now a really funny video about Russian car drivers....at least the first part with the tank is REALLY funny... imagine experiencing that :D :D

Some facts about Russia..

Since I have to study for my Russian exam, I thought: Why not write about Russia's history on here?
I bet there are some things you've always wondered about...for example:

Saint Peterburg- Stalingrad- Leningrad - Petrograd- Wolgograd....5 different cities?

Actually these names describe only 2 cities. Saint Peterburg used to be called "Petrograd" from 1914- 1924. This was because they wanted to be less European and change the name "Peterburg" to a more Russian version. "Grad" ("Град") is the Russian word for "Berg",which again is the german word for "mountain." In 1924 after Lenin had died, they changed the name to "Leningrad" in order to honor him. The funny thing about that is that Stalin and Lenin had always been enemies. Lenin followed the actualy theories of Karl Marx, while Stalin changed these ideas to his own benefits. The fight between them ended with Lenin's death, and as Stalin saw how much Lenin had influenced the public he decided to use this admiration for Lenin. He gave speeches about him, had his body preserved so that Russians could come and see him (btw. you can still do this today in Moskow), and namend Peterburg after him.

From 1925 (one year after Lenin's death!) until 1961, Wolgograd was called "Stalingrad" in order to honor Stalin. In 1961, Chruschtschow, who wanted to reverse everything bad that had happened under Stalin, renamed the city "Wolgograd."

Czardom, empire, USSR, Russia

From 1547 - 1721 Russia was czardom. It had been ruled by czars who had hardly any contact to Europe.
In 1721, Peter the Great decided to call himself not "czar" but "emperor". Peter had been traveling through Europe all his life, and was fascinated (even a bit obsessed) by it. He founded the city Saint Peterburg, which was built in a very European style. He hated the old orthodox Russian church, the old Russian aristocracy and the Russian's original architectural style. So he also wanted to change the whole system of ruling his country. He wanted Russia to become more modern...more European. That's how the czardom became the empire.
In 1917 during the revolution of February the emperors were first deported and later killed by the Bolsheviks. This was the end of the Russian czardom and the first steps to a newly formed government - "the USSR")
From 1921 to 1991 Russia was part and head of the Soviet Union. Russians lived through periods of great economic success, stagnation, censorship, freedom of speech....through ups and downs. Some presidents wanted to reverse everything bad Stalin had done; others wanted to step into his shoes and rule like a dictator. Gorbachev was the last president of the Soviet Union. While he is celebrated in the West, he is condemned in Russia. According to Russians, the great economic crisis after the breakdown of the Soviet Union was his fault. Many believe that the Soviet Union should have never stopped existing and that everything got worse after the breakdown.

Distractions, oh... distractions...

In 2 hours and 15 minutes I'm gonna write the last progress check for this year. *yay*
Since I am not the type of student that can sit there and study until the very end, I thought I'd distract myself by writing another blog post.
Yesterday they finaaalllyyy aired season 5 of one of my favorite American TV shows: Pretty Little Liars
This show is so gripping that I sometimes sit there and forget about everything else that happens around me.

The plot is brilliant and I think I don't lie when I say there has never been anything like it.
It's about a girl who disappears and is soon found dead. Her best friends meet at her funeral and it turns out that a lot of weird things had been going on between the dead girl, her friends and their classmates. One day, the girls start getting weird text messages signed with the letter "A" (the dead girl was called Ally). Those text messages soon turn out to be real threats. Someone seems to be playing with the girls - but who? And is Ally really dead? If yes - who killed her?  If not- who is the girl in the grave? And who is this mysterious "A"- what does he/she want?

Of course I already know some of the answers, but I don't want to spoil :P.
I really recommend you start watching this show. But don't start if you need to study for an exam...I guarantee you just won't be able to stop. You'll probably watch all of the 5 seasons in a row and in the end fail all of your exams ... but at least then you know a bit more about Ally :P jk.

Studying, studying, aand... yup..you are right ;)

Believe it or not - being a student can actually be a whole lot of work.

Since there is this rumor going around in our society that all students are lazy and don't do anything else but go to parties and get drunk, I’ll to my best to smash these illusions by telling you about my life as a poor, poor student : P

I'm gonna tell you about my plan for the next couple of weeks to illustrate just how wrong this image of "a student" is.

Soo... it all starts next week with PC2 (Thursday). Of course I've already been studying for it, but I'll still have to prepare over the weekend. Then 4 days after PC 2 (on Monday) I'll take my final Russian exam. *yaaay* - that's gonna be fun...*sarcasm off*. On the same day and the day after that, we have the "Culture Days". This means we have to give a presentation about a culture topic. I decided to make my presentation about war crimes in Vietnam. This already required a looooot of work- watching interviews, gathering information, making a handout, making a powerpoint presentation, thinking of what I'm going to say etc. etc.

---Ok, at this point I have to admit that even if the culture project is so much work, it's also pretty damn awesome. Doing so much research that you can actually say you "know something about that" is very interesting, especially since I am totally fascinated by my topic.---

Three days after the culture project, I'll take my final German exam. I haven't had the time to prepare for that yet, so that's gonna be a lot of work too.
One week ofter that comes the moment we all fear most - the "Kommissionelle Gesamtprüfung".
That's an oral exam that lasts 45 minutes, in which you have to prove that you can actually handle grammar, vocab, and culture of all of your three languages (Russian, English, German). Most teachears claim it's not so difficult...but well.. we'll see. Maybe after the KGP I'll read this post and be like: "haha...that was really easy...why all the worrying"


And then, when most students are already on vaccation, I'll take another exam about US culture.

So yes...being a student can actually mean studying a lot. 
The only good thing about this is that I love my field of studies so much that I sometimes get pretty excited while studying with friends, especially when the light bulb goes on and we're like: "uuuh...nooow I get that"